Love

Right up there in the top left-hand corner
where it always starts
or appears, to start

Write Love large
because you’re going to need it
What comes next is likely interesting
and possibly, interestingly
unpleasant

That’s ice, to slide, and a cage to dodge
before you even flip back left
to what could be a prayer, or warning
or a just a recipe,
even Destiny expects something to eat

Here’s the tricky part,
because she’s hiding something, that hand
that perched Love as a statement, a title
a black and white tangible – ‘I am’
if so, what’s going on below?

Dim the lights, Dull the ice
it’s fire, and the dark that holds us to it.
There are 14 shades of flame, and eyes,
look how far love can fall, how ardently burn,
is this it, the secret, the canvas is paled with a cover of ash?

And yet, as love is promised, as here is perched
is hope. Is this last an incantation, a chant, a charm
If we tangle into the runes, are these wings,
can we be saved? I believe she must believe,
we can rise

See, she writes love again
in five straight white lines
across the dark